Here we are, the end of the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy, well if you discount The Forgotten Sands which I don't know if I do since I never played it. The story all comes together in this installment, The Two Thrones where it even attempts to weave the unnecessary manliness of Warrior Within without a retcon. But there has to be something to mess up the works, and here I literally can not beat the Stone Guardian due to some undiscovered glitch where the Speed Kill just doesn't come up or I'm that incompetent. And since this is around the half-way mark, I flat-out refused to do a new game so I read the game script online to finish the story and here we are. Now let's get going with this review of Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones....kind of.
You have come back from the Island of Time where the Prince changed his fate from being destroyed by The Dahaka creature. Now it's time to head back to Babylon and rest up...except that Babylon's ON FIRE! And there's a war going on led by the evil Vizier from the first game that you killed...wait. Well, thanks to the WACKY HIJINKS in the last game, you never did the events of The Sands of Time which explains why the Vizier is here killing off Babylon but that's not all! The Vizier also wishes to be a God which he accomplishes by killing Kaileena, that chick from the last game who's also the Empress of Time and in her death, she becomes The Sands of Time which makes The Vizier a God! And The Prince also gets corrupted by The Sands which gives him a split personality that acts like Warrior Within's Prince.
It's very refreshing to see this game go back to what made Sands of Time work when it did, the fun acrobatics. They have the same fun and fast-paced derring-do from Sand of Time without being a total chore to slog through like in Warrior Within. There's color and life in this game again and best of all, the Prince is interesting again. The Prince makes jokes but this time, there's pathos and depression when he looks over the destruction of his home. It also helps that he has someone to banter with his dark side. They have great chemistry together as the dark side wants to finish off The Vizier as quickly as possible and The Prince slowly regains his selflessness as he helps and fights for others beside himself. But, The Dark Prince isn't voiced by the guy who voiced The Prince in Warrior Within which would have been awesome. Not saying the guy who does voice is bad or anything but bringing in the Warrior Within guy would have been a great Continuity Nod.
But then again, there's the combat. Once again, it's a frustrating experience when you're surrounded and the enemies keep attacking you. But this time, blocking and dodging don't work very often. There's too many times where I blocked only to be beaten down. And if you want to throw your secondary weapon...good luck. Most times you throw it in the opposite direction and that's if you were quick enough to throw it at all. But, there is a new thing that makes combat a bit more bearable, the speed kill. It's your stealth kill that's akin to God of War's Quick-Time Events which makes it easy and fast for you to kill the bad guys. Granted, the timing is a bit too tight but it's a great system.
This game is actually good but barely...or at least the first half and the script is. This rediscovers the joys of jumping with more techniques. The voice-acting is amazing with great chemistry between the two princes. How it weaves in Warrior Within's story is extremely clever. The battle system still needs work but the speed kills are a great addition. It's a pity that I couldn't beat the game but whatever, I'll live happily ever after.
7/10
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